Falling
by Ambrosia Rush
Summary: The Technical Operator and Intelligence Analyst have to watch the field agents on screen and have no power to stop what is happening. Have a tissue handy. *Updated June 25/12


Nell sat at her desk, working quickly. Her fingers danced across the keyboard with swift accuracy. She sent the information to the field agent's phones. It was game time and everyone was in position.

"Finally going to catch this guy," Eric said with a heavy sigh. "It's about time."

"I couldn't agree more," Nell responded with heated anger. She was sick of this case, the entire team was. She had watched the physical and emotional toll it had taken on the team. Especially Callen. Not that the case had been harder on him than the others, but they had been secretly dating for months and so she watched him most. They hadn't yet said the 'L' word yet, but Nell was more than content in her relationship, and knowing the little that she did about his past she didn't want to push him.

Callen was the first face she saw in the morning and the last one she seen before bed. She'd watched him withdraw slightly in the week that they'd been working this case. She could go on for minutes before he realized she was talking, he always apologised but there wasn't any need. The case was bothering her too, she just wished he'd talk about it.

The Technical Operator and Intelligence Analyst tapped into the cameras that were still active in the warehouse, looking out for the enemies. Eric passed Nell an ear piece and the six minds were one. A camera caught Sam and Callen at the front of the warehouse and Kensi and Deeks prepped at the back.

"This place is a landmine of blind spots," Eric told them as he came to stand up in front of the full screen his tablet in hand.

"Sam, Callen, about a hundred feet north of you two there is room to the left" Nell came to stand beside her partner, steeling her spine for the battle. Sure their battle wasn't the physical one, but it was one of the mind, and one of the soul. It didn't matter far removed from the situation they were, it still was terrifying to watch their colleagues, their friends go into a building, guns drawn and know that something might happen. It was a risk they took everyday, but it didn't make it any easier. "The room appears to be where Captain Cassidy is being held."

"_Thanks Nell," _Callen replied slight static from his words over the communication device. _"Kensi, Deeks- you ready." _

"_Ready when you are," _Kensi replied.

"_Three,"_ Callen said and no one needed the rest of the countdown, they'd worked together too long to need it.

Nell and Eric watched as Sam booted open the door and the agents moved in. The agents needed to clear the rooms first as much as they all wanted to go rushing forward and getting the Captain back. Sam went right, Callen moved left.

The warehouse was filled with machinery, most of it still running despite not producing anything. The sound had covered their entrance, and Callen's movements through the room. Problem was, it also covered the man's movements behind him.

Nell watched in horror as a man moved into the frame behind Callen. "Callen! Behind you!" she yelled into the communication device.

He quickly turned but there was a burst of gunfire from the enemy. Blood erupted as bullets ripped through Callen's body which jerked like a rag doll before collapsing heavily to the concrete.

Nell swore her heart stopped. "Callen!" She cried out her knees shaking. "Callen!"

"Sam! Callen's down!" Eric spoke more efficiently while Nell went bone white. He tapped on his tablet. "Medics gave ETA seven minutes."

Nell put her hands on the back of a chair to keep her knees from buckling. "Callen?" she whispered watching his blood pool around his body.

His breaths came through the communication device off kilter and laboured. _"Nell?"_

"I'm here," she replied trying so hard to stay strong but the tears were pouring down her face.

She watched as Sam burst in the room and the man tuned to fire at him but fell before Sam could squeeze off a shot. Deeks's gun smoked on screen from the other entrance and Kensi pulled the injured Captain behind her.

Sam was by his partners side and he got the worst case of daja vu he'd ever gotten. _"G!" _Kensi pulled Callen's head from the cold cement floor and onto her lap. Sam tried to stop the blood flow with his hands. Deeks stripped off his shirt and used it to press into the wound that was bleeding the most, right by his heart. Deeks looked worriedly to Kensi and then at Sam- neither looked back, both their attentions were firmly on Callen.

"_G, you got to stay with me,"_ Sam was ordering.

"_Nell?" _His voice was getting choked up and it was obvious the effort he was putting into each syllable.

"I'm here G, I'm here," she responded sobbing and Eric's arm went around her but she was in another world, and it was just her and Callen and this awful, heart crushing feeling of fear,_ fear_ that she would lose him.

"_Love you,"_ he said choking in his next breath.

"I love you too G, _please_," she begged. "Stay, you have to fight G!" she didn't care about everyone of her words being heard by the entire team, in this moment they didn't even exist. "Don't leave me G, I love you." She wrapped her arms around herself like it could protect her from the heartbreak of watching the man she loved bleeding out on screen.

"_Don't want to leave," _he said almost argumentatively and she watched on screen as Callen appeared to be trying to get up.

"_Stop moving G!"_ Sam shouted and Kensi pushed his shoulders down. _"Stay calm, medics are on their way. Hold on G!"_

"_Eric ETA!"_ Kensi yelled angrily.

"Three minutes out," Eric responded dazed, it seemed so surreal to watch it unfold, it wasn't some nameless-faceless bad guy bleeding out in the decrepit warehouse. It was G Callen, legend, special-agent-in-charge, _friend_. "Medics are three minutes away..."

Callen's eyes started fluttering and Kensi's head jolted. _"I hear the ambulance!"_

"_I'll wave it in," _The Captain said putting a hand on Kensi's shoulder. "You stay with them."

"_G, come on," _Kensi said gripping her senior officer's shoulders hard. She didn't want to lose another man in her life, especially not someone like Callen, her honorary big brother. _"Stay awake!" _

"_S'okay, Kensi," _Callen responded pain evident in his voice. _"Nell?"_

"Yeah?" She responded trying to force her lungs to remember to breathe.

"_I'm sorry,"_ blood was building in the back of his throat and she could hear it from the awful gurgling sound in his voice, she could see it as he coughed and it touched the corner of his lips.

"What?" She was confused, and this was easily the worst moment of her life. She didn't understand. None of what she was seeing seemed to make sense. It was all surreal. This couldn't be happening. G Callen couldn't be shot, he couldn't be lying there on the ground bleeding, dying. He couldn't. Her mind couldn't process the information, wouldn't. If it did... she wasn't sure she could go on. She could see on another screen that the medics were rushing toward the building following the Captain.

"_I don't think..."_ he struggled, coughed and blood flooding his mouth, Kensi turned him just slightly and he spat it out. _"I can't stay,"_ he said. _"I love you."_

"No! NO!" Her voice raising in fear. She shook her head, her thoughts trying to get in order, trying so damn hard to make sense. "G Callen you can't d-" she couldn't even say the word.

His eyes were rolling back in his head and the team parted way for the medics to work.

"I love you G," she cried over and over again, if he had to go that those were going to be the last words he heard.

"_I'm sorry,"_ she heard the medic's say as they sat back and devastation broke the team.

Nell was in an overwhelming state of shock. She didn't feel it when her knees finally gave out and her knees smashed against the floor. She was trapped within her own private hell. He couldn't be... She looked up at the screen in time to see one of the medic's cover G Callen in a white sheet. Blood created macabre blossoms on the cotton. "Oh God," her arms wrapped around herself, one ending up over her heart.

His hand only that morning had sat there, in that very spot as she had woken.

"_How long have you been awake?" she asked. _

"_A while," he had responded, one hand over her steadily beating heart, the other brushing back her hair with a tenderness that still managed to surprise her. _

"_You should have woke me." _

_He had smiled, and that was beautiful. She loved his smile, loved that it was rare, and yet it seemed to be his gift just for her. He was always smiling around her. "I like watching you sleep." His finger tapped above her heart, strumming her heartbeat. "You're so peaceful." _

_She had rolled and straddled his waist. "Am I still peaceful up here?" she asked looking down at him. _

_He smirked, sat up and wrapped an arm around her, the other grabbing under her knee and flipped them over so he was on top. "No, you're teasing, tempting," he kissed her hard on the lips, and she ground her hips against his. He pulled back from the kiss, their noses touching. "Sinful." _

_His phone rang and he groaned before answering it, placing a finger over her lips. He listened and then said, "I'll be right in Eric." He hung up and looked down at her. "Finally got a lead, might just break this case." _

"_About time," she said as he got off her and looked around for his pants. She sat up and pulled the blankets up feeling vulnerable in her nightgown. _

"_Tell you what," he said finding them and pulling them on. "We break this thing today_..." _he walked back over shirtless and pushed her down on the bed. "I'll take you for dinner, wherever you want." _

"_Thought we were keeping things low key." Low key had meant his place or hers- though this was the first week they'd actually taken things to the bedroom. _

"_We break this thing today and I'll even tell Deeks." _

"_He'd tell everyone." _

"_Save us sometime," he'd responded with a smile and she felt her heart melt. _

"_I'd like not to be a secret," she'd said softly. _

"_I'd like to enrapture you, but we've got work." _

_She had blushed as he took her hand and pulled her out of bed. "And I really want to finish this case so we can come back here and do just that." _

"_After dinner," she'd said coyly. _

"_We'll need the energy," he'd replied with a smile and she'd thrown a pillow at him. "Till tonight," he had grabbed his car keys. _

"_Can't wait," she'd responded. _

"Miss Jones," Hetty was before her, tears were in the old woman's eyes and she never looked older or more frail than she did at that moment. "Mr Beale is going to drive you home."

Nell's lip quivered. _Home_. Where his scent would linger in the sheets and promises of tomorrow would hang heavily in the air. She nodded but couldn't speak.

Eric had offered to stay. She had shaken her head and shut the door behind herself- she needed to be on her own, she needed to grasp onto the memories to embed them in her brain so she would never forget.

The livingroom held laughter of their early courtship, he'd tried to teach her Russian, and she was getting good enough to string a few words together. Their 'Russian lessons' had begun innocently, and then they were a code word for 'come over for dinner' and 'I'll teach you something other than Russian.'

The kitchen held home cooked meals and his sincere fear that he would burn the house down if he attempted helping- he'd only burnt the drapes. She looked to the remainder of the fabric that hung in her window and walked past it and stepped past the threshold of her bedroom.

The bed was unmade, and she stripped off her work clothing like she could shed her own skin, erase the day, she pulled on the nightgown she'd worn the previous night and laid down on the bed, on his side. It smelt like him, a hint of aftershave, earth and something distinctly... _him_.

Her lip quivered and the sobs took over her body. There was nothing fair about this world. She'd only had him for such a short time and then... he was ripped away.

She closed her eyes, prayed it was a nightmare, that when she awoke she'd be in his arms, his hand over her heart and his fingers brushing back her hair. "G," she cried out in the sobs, her body curled in the fetal position, "I need you G."

::

**Thanks for reading :)**


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